KARACHI, Feb 10: Prince El Hassan Bin Talal of Jordan said on Saturday world had suffered a lot due to confrontation and unending disputes and children had suffered a great deal in these conflicts of elders.

“Children have fallen victims to the wars in which they had no part. We have hundreds of such examples in which children have suffered a lot. The Unesco facts and figures show how grave the situation has been,” Prince Talal said in his keynote speech at the groundbreaking celebrations of the Children’s Museum for Peace and Human Rights at the Old Race Course Ground.

“Since Intifada began in the Occupied Palestine, more than 500 children were killed of which over 440 were Palestinians and the rest were Israeli,” he said.

He said the world had virtually divided among various tribes – the most prominent being the tribes of the rich and the poor – and there was a need to bring about racial equality index to serve one common goal: a unified and dignified humanity.

“We are in the world of tribalism comprised of the rich and poor and in between and it is time to opt for human-centric instead of nourishing any further biases of which the world has been accustomed to for centuries,” he said.

“Humans should be counted first and the foremost,” he said and added that Muslims across the globe had known how to die and now the time had arrived for them to know how to live.

Prince El Hassan Bin Talal, known for his great contributions in the humanitarian efforts across the world, was much worried about the surge of sectarian and racial disputes in West Asia comprising the Gulf countries and said such divisions were lethal, which should be done away with collective efforts. “We have to comprehend and think over it on serious grounds,” he said.

He said the Children’s Museum for Peace and Human Rights was a huge effort to bring a classless understanding between the future generations of Pakistan.

Earlier, Prince Rashid Bin El Hassan, son of Prince El Hassan Bin Talal and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Hashemite Charitable Organisation, announced to bear 10 per cent of the total expenses required for establishing the museum.

Tasneem Siddiqui, chairperson of the CMPHR, said the gaps among various populations of the society were widening due to lack of common space where people from all the classes could meet and interact. “Unlike other big cities, Karachi has no mass transit system, no museums and libraries etc. where our people could meet and exchange ideas,” he said.

According to him, the CMPHR was one such place where children from all parts of the city would come together and share their intellect and ideas.

According to the organisers, it will be the first ever children’s museum on social issues anywhere in the world. The government has provided 1.5 acres for the museum within the Old Race Course Ground which is expected to open in December 2008.

Later, Prince El Hassan Bin Talal planted a sapling to formally perform the groundbreaking as children were playing toy-drums synchronizing with Sindhi folk music in the background.